The Skinny Blog

Market Research

Here at MAAR, we’re always coming up with new ways to convey information to our members, the media and the public. In our research department, we’ve been working on creating a series of maps that help us visualize and better understand our regional … [read more]

Have you ever wondered to yourself what the home price trendline would look like compared to a hypothetical trendline that starts at the same price in 1990 but increased at a steady and predictable 4% annual growth? Well you’re in luck, because that’s exactly the sort of in-depth market insights that we serve up on … [read more]

The red-hot Twin Cities housing market is starting to cool off just a bit. While June 2017 marked an all-time record for Twin Cities home sales and prices, purchase demand declined from last year for a third consecutive month. New listings decreased 5.2 percent from September 2016 to 6,472, and pending sales dipped 1.7 percent. … [read more]

The “MGIC/MAAR Home Payment Report” is a quarterly overview of typical monthly payments on homes recently sold in the Twin Cities’ 50 most active real estate markets. Agents can download the report and forward it to prospects or include it in their own marketing pieces. The report is produced through a partnership between MAAR and … [read more]

Since home prices for the Twin Cities metro have fully recovered and then some, it’s tempting (and even somewhat logical) to assume that monthly mortgage payments are also at all-time highs. That assumption would be entirely inaccurate. But it makes so much sense! If the median home price is at an all-time high, the monthly … [read more]

While many–though not all–cities around the metro have seen all-time high median sales prices, the first and second-ring suburbs near Minneapolis and major job centers stand out. Check out the median home price for these Minneapolis suburbs. But when we account for the fact that bigger homes are selling (both from new construction and finishing … [read more]

Given the fact that the school year is about a month away (yikes) and we’ve already had our first preview of fall weather, it feels like a good time to talk about seasonality. First of all, whatever you do, don’t use the term “seasonably adjusted.” Second of all, don’t make matters worse by talking about … [read more]

Have you ever been asked “How do taxes compare between Minneapolis and Edina?” Odds are if you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’ve been asked that. And if not, you could be next! To help answer that question, we’ve created a table that compares the median sales prices in both cities along with the median … [read more]

As the shortage of residential property listings persists, many observers are rightly examining recent new construction trends. We’d like to get in on that. Using exclusively NorthstarMLS data, this analysis only looks at listings with a “year built” field of 2016 or later. However, the closed sales count only uses 2017YTD activity and inventory is always … [read more]